I blame China and India. How dare the citizens of those countries act in their own self interest to better their lot by making money, increasing oil demand, and driving the price way up? Shame on them! They should send money to us poor industrialized Americans who have to pay more in gas b/c of their greed.

Something not mentioned yet is the devaluation of the dollar, which I blame Greenspan and the Bush admin for. That is a major reason for oil being so high b/c it is transacted in USD. So Exxon's nominal profits are quite a different story than if measured at what the dollar index would have been a few years ago without debasement, but with the surge in global demand.

But hey, an artificially inflated number makes for good headlines and sound bytes to cause much ado over nothing, or at least to misdirect the anger and complaints. Go with it!

Snakes Gould wrote:i dont really know why anyone can be mad at this. this is a business and if you ran the business you'd want the highest profits possible. sure it sucks for us, but if it was me, i wouldnt want anyone telling me i made too much money.

Gouging the many to provide the extravagance of the few.

This is a time of economic crisis and instead of stepping up and providing some kind of financial relief to the nation, they take advantage of the people to line their own pockets. Supply and demand is not a factor here, since oil and gas are necessities that many Americans are forced to buy. Oil companies can theoretically drive up the price as much as they want and people will still pay for it. The price of oil products when passed on to the consumers has increased at a slightly higher rate than the rate at which Big Oil buys it. The rising price at which they buy it (which is reported dozens of times a day on the news) is just an excuse, a mask that they use to hide the crimes they commit.

Rocinante2: you knowRocinante2: its easy to dismiss the orioles as a bad teamofanrex: go onRocinante2: i'm doneRocinante2: lmao

Neato Torpedo wrote:Gouging the many to provide the extravagance of the few.

I don't think you really understand what "gouging" is

Neato Torpedo wrote:This is a time of economic crisis and instead of stepping up and providing some kind of financial relief to the nation, they take advantage of the people to line their own pockets.

What should they be doing? Cut out their profit entirely, stop paying their employees and operating expenses just so you pay a few cents less at the pump? Gas prices would still be ridiculously high.

Neato Torpedo wrote:Supply and demand is not a factor here, since oil and gas are necessities that many Americans are forced to buy. Oil companies can theoretically drive up the price as much as they want and people will still pay for it.

Any oil company is welcome to come along and sell it for less. Which will not doubt incite cries of price-fixing conspiracies.

Neato Torpedo wrote:The rising price at which they buy it (which is reported dozens of times a day on the news) is just an excuse, a mask that they use to hide the crimes they commit.

Crimes? You do love your sensational buzz words, don't you? Let me guess, journalism major? Just because you call something enough nasty names doesn't make your case any truer. Gas prices suck, but one of the protections of a free market economy is the assurance that if it could be profitably sold for less, someone would do it.

Fascinating we've chosen to fixate on companies turning a 7% profit while completely ignoring the fact that crude prices have increased exponentially in a few short years. No news articles on what the Saudis are doing with all that money? It's ok for them to get filthy rich for nothing, but not for any US company to earn a nice rate of return for its investors?

TheRock wrote:What should they be doing? Cut out their profit entirely, stop paying their employees and operating expenses just so you pay a few cents less at the pump? Gas prices would still be ridiculously high.

Are you familiar with the concept of "tragedy of the commons"? A few dollars here and there from 300 million people eventually turns into billions of dollars, which would maybe help support the freefalling economy. It's ridiculous to say "a few cents from one person" isn't important for the economy. And there's no reason to go from one extreme to another, they don't have to cut out their profit entirely. Are you implying that they wouldn't be able to pay their employees with, say, an $8 billion profit?

TheRock wrote:Any oil company is welcome to come along and sell it for less. Which will not doubt incite cries of price-fixing conspiracies.

You completely miss my point. They sell the same amount of units, but the per-unit profit would be less, since what they're selling is a necessity and would be bought at $3.50 a gallon, $4.50 a gallon, or, as we'll soon see, upwards of $5 a gallon. This applies to all oil companies.

TheRock wrote:Crimes? You do love your sensational buzz words, don't you? Let me guess, journalism major? Just because you call something enough nasty names doesn't make your case any truer. Gas prices suck, but one of the protections of a free market economy is the assurance that if it could be profitably sold for less, someone would do it.

Hey, awesome, focus on one word I write and miss the whole point. See above.

TheRock wrote:Fascinating we've chosen to fixate on companies turning a 7% profit while completely ignoring the fact that crude prices have increased exponentially in a few short years. No news articles on what the Saudis are doing with all that money? It's ok for them to get filthy rich for nothing, but not for any US company to earn a nice rate of return for its investors?

This is also a reason we have to get into alternative energy resources, the Saudi government is one of the most oppressive in the world, if not the most oppressive. It's really sad to see Bush suck up to the Saudis and beg them to lower oil prices, only to be sharply denied and then walk out with his tail between his legs. Unfortunately, the oil they have has our balls in a salad shooter. I can't wait for the day we can finally cut ties with this nasty regime.

Rocinante2: you knowRocinante2: its easy to dismiss the orioles as a bad teamofanrex: go onRocinante2: i'm doneRocinante2: lmao

TheRock wrote:What should they be doing? Cut out their profit entirely, stop paying their employees and operating expenses just so you pay a few cents less at the pump? Gas prices would still be ridiculously high.

Are you familiar with the concept of "tragedy of the commons"?

I think you might not be familiar with that term:

"[Tragedy of the commons] states that free access and unrestricted demand for a finite resource ultimately structurally dooms the resource through over-exploitation."

...the Saudi government is one of the most oppressive in the world, if not the most oppressive. It's really sad to see Bush suck up to the Saudis and beg them to lower oil prices, only to be sharply denied and then walk out with his tail between his legs. Unfortunately, the oil they have has our balls in a salad shooter. I can't wait for the day we can finally cut ties with this nasty regime.

So you've been writing your Congressman insisting that we start drilling here so that we can supply our own oil up until we finally develop alternative energies that are economically viable, right? You've also let them know that you're upset about them blocking domestic oil production over the last decade, right?

TheRock wrote:What should they be doing? Cut out their profit entirely, stop paying their employees and operating expenses just so you pay a few cents less at the pump? Gas prices would still be ridiculously high.

Are you familiar with the concept of "tragedy of the commons"?

I think you might not be familiar with that term:

"[Tragedy of the commons] states that free access and unrestricted demand for a finite resource ultimately structurally dooms the resource through over-exploitation."

Sigh...rigidly, that may be the definition. I forget the term off my head, but what I'm referring to is the same basic concept. A couple dollars times 300 million people equals a hell of a lot of money that could be going towards struggling sectors of the economy.

Rocinante2: you knowRocinante2: its easy to dismiss the orioles as a bad teamofanrex: go onRocinante2: i'm doneRocinante2: lmao

...the Saudi government is one of the most oppressive in the world, if not the most oppressive. It's really sad to see Bush suck up to the Saudis and beg them to lower oil prices, only to be sharply denied and then walk out with his tail between his legs. Unfortunately, the oil they have has our balls in a salad shooter. I can't wait for the day we can finally cut ties with this nasty regime.

So you've been writing your Congressman insisting that we start drilling here so that we can supply our own oil up until we finally develop alternative energies that are economically viable, right? You've also let them know that you're upset about them blocking domestic oil production over the last decade, right?

I've been writing my Congressman for years to divert as much money as possible to exploration, research, and development of alternative energy sources. Had we placed a fraction of the funds from the Iraq war into alternative energy development, we'd be at least 10 years ahead of where we are now. And for the record, the amount of oil in America in ANWR, etc, can barely supply U.S. oil demand for a year, if that much, and is the most temporary of solutions.

Rocinante2: you knowRocinante2: its easy to dismiss the orioles as a bad teamofanrex: go onRocinante2: i'm doneRocinante2: lmao